The Crisis in Berlin

by Karl Marx

Cologne, November 8. The situation looks very complicated, but
it is very simple. [87]

The King, as the Neue Preussische Zeitung [88] correctly notes,
stands "on the broad foundation" of his "hereditary divine" rights.

On the other side, the National Assembly has no foundation whatever,
its purpose being to constitute, to lay the foundation.

Two sovereign powers.

The connecting link between the two is Camphausen, and the theory
of agreement.

When these two sovereign powers are no longer able to agree or
do not want to agree, they become two inimical sovereign powers. The King
has the right to throw down the gauntlet to the Assembly, the Assembly
has the right to throw down the gauntlet to the King. The greater right
is on the side of the greater might. Power is tested in struggle. The test
of the struggle is victory. Each of the two powers can prove that it is
right only by its victory, that it is wrong only by its defeat.

The King until now has not been a constitutional king. He is an
absolute monarch who decides for or against constitutionalism.

The Assembly until now has not been a constitutional but a- constituent
assembly. It has so far attempted to constitute constitutionalism. It can
continue or discontinue its attempts.

Both the King and the Assembly temporarily acquiesced in the constitutional
ceremonial.

The King's demand that a Brandenburg cabinet be appointed at his
pleasure in defiance of the majority of the Chamber, is the demand of an
absolute monarch.

The Chamber's presumption to send a deputation straight to the
King forbidding the formation of a Brandenburg cabinet, is the presumption
of an absolute Chamber.

The King and the Assembly have sinned against constitutional convention.

The King and the Chamber have both retreated to their original
sphere, the King deliberately, the Chamber unwittingly.

The King is at an advantage.

Right is on the side of might.

Legal phrases are on the side of impotence.

A Rodbertus cabinet would be the cipher in which plus and minus
neutralize each other.